Are We There Yet? Assessing Computer-Use Agents for Blind Users'Accessible Interaction with Desktop Applications
TL;DR
A three-week diary study with 8 blind users using OLLA, a screen-reader-accessible CUA prototype, collecting 1,258 commands across 12 applications with screenshots, UI trees, model responses, and action traces reveals grounding, planning, constraint-tracking, and termination failures, while interviews reveal beyond-automation needs.
Abstract
Computer-use agents are emerging as a paradigm for agentic human-AI interaction, combining language reasoning with multi-modal interface grounding to operate GUIs. Yet their effectiveness for blind screen-reader users in real-world desktop workflows remains unclear. We present a three-week diary study with 8 blind users using OLLA, a screen-reader-accessible CUA prototype, collecting 1,258 commands across 12 applications with screenshots, UI trees, model responses, and action traces. We evaluate GPT-5 during deployment and re-execute the same commands with four additional models. GPT-5 achieved the highest success rate at 52.5%. Trace analysis reveals grounding, planning, constraint-tracking, and termination failures, while interviews reveal beyond-automation needs.
